Prehistory of Native Americans in North America before European Contact
Colonial History from the Earliest European Settlements to the Outbreak of the War of Independence
The Early History of
the US: from the War of Independence to the Outbreak of the Civil War
History of the US from the Civil War to
World War I
History of the US from
World War I to World War II
History of the US since World War II
0. Prehistory of Native
Americans in North America before European Contact
By c. 10,000
B.P. (before the present): Native American ethnic groups had occupied the whole
American continent, arriving originally from Siberia across the Bering Strait.
(For more, see
)
c.300 B.C. – 700 A.D. The prosperity
of Teotihuacán, the center of a significant culture in central Mexico:
sophisticated social hierarchy, huge pyramids, complex religion. (For more,
see
)
c. 250–900 A.D.: The classic period of the Maya
culture in the Yucatan Peninsula (present-day southern Mexico, Guatemala and
Belize): irrigated agriculture, urban centers, magnificent stone temples,
precise calendar, writing system (For more,
see
)
c. 900–1200: Central Mexico was ruled by the Toltecs,
with their capital in Tula: temples and pyramids, militant culture, human
sacrifices (For more,
see
)
c. 900–1350: The flowering of the Anasazi, or the
ancient Pueblo people, in the present Southwest of the US: significant
architecture, but no cultural achievements comparable to Mexican high cultures.
Their most significant archeological remains are found at
Mesa Verde
National Park, Colorado (For more,
see
)
c. 1400–1520: The emergence of the Aztec empire in central
Mexico, with their capital in Tenochtitlan. (For more,
see
)
1. Colonial History: from
the Earliest European Settlements to the Outbreak of the War of Independence
1492:
Christopher
Columbus
landed on one of the Caribbean islands – discovery of the „New World”
1497–98:
John Cabot
(Giovanni Caboto) discovered the northeastern coast of North America in English
service.
1519–21:
Hernándo Cortés
conquered the Aztec Empire in present-day Mexico; Mexico became part of the
vast Spanish colonial empire.
1534–35:
Jacques
Cartier
explored the
St. Lawrence River in the northeastern part of North
America.
1539–42:
Hernando de
Soto
explored the southeastern part of North America from present
Florida to
the Mississippi river.
1540–42:
Francisco Vásquez de Coronado
explored the southwestern part of North America, from present
New Mexico
to
Texas.
1565: The first permanent
North American white settlement, St. Augustine, was established in
Florida
by the Spanish.
1584–87:
Sir Walter
Raleigh
organized two unsuccessful expeditions to establish an English colony in „Virginia”
(actually, off the coast of present
North Carolina).
1607: The foundation of
Jamestown,
Virginia,
the first permanent English settlement.
1608: The foundation of
Québec,
Canada,
the first permanent French settlement.
1619: The creation of the
House of Burgesses, the first legislative assembly in Virginia; the arrival of
the first black slaves into Virginia.
1620: The foundation of
Plymouth, the first English settlement in
New England by the
Pilgrims.
1624: The foundation of
New
Amsterdam,
the first permanent Dutch settlement.
1630: The Puritan
colonists founded Boston in New England.
1632: The Calvert family
received a royal grant to colonize
Maryland.
1636: Dissident Puritans
founded
Rhode Island and
Connecticut colonies in New England.
1663: A royal charter
issued to eight proprietors to colonize the Carolinas (defined at the time as
all the area between Virginia and Spanish Florida)
1664: The English defeated
the Dutch and occupied New Amsterdam; it was renamed New York after its
proprietor, the Duke of York (the future
James II).
1681:
William Penn
received the territory between New York and Maryland in return for a debt; he
founded
Pennsylvania.
1730: The Carolinas were
divided into two royal colonies.
1732:
Georgia was
founded south of the Carolinas as a military buffer zone against Spanish
Florida.
1754–1760:
The French
and Indian War:
Canada and the territory between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River
came under British control.
1763: A
royal
proclamation
forbade white settlement in British territory west of the Appalachians.
1764: The
Sugar Act;
the first Act passed by the British Parliament which was rejected by American
colonists on constitutional grounds.
1765: The
Stamp Act and the
Quartering Act
provoked widespread anger and protests in the North American colonies.
1766: Stamp Act repealed,
but the British Parliament’s power to legislate for the colonies reaffirmed.
1767: The
Townshend Acts:
new import duties provoking new protests in the colonies
1770: The
Boston
Massacre:
five people killed when British soldiers fired into an angry mob of civilians;
Parliament repealed the duties except for the duty on imported tea
1773: The Tea Act allowed
the East India Company to bring tea to North America duty-free; during the
Boston Tea Party,
a group of Patriots threw a whole cargo of tea of an East India Company ship
into the harbor.
1774: The
Coercive Acts
closed Boston Harbor and restricted the powers of the Massachusetts colonial
assembly;
The First Continental Congress
of the colonies gathered in Philadelphia.
1775: In
April, armed fight broke out between British soldiers and Massachusetts
militiamen at
Lexington and Concord;
the
Second Continental Congress
gathered in Philadelphia in May and decided to support the uprising in
Massachusetts
à The beginning of the
War of Independence
2. The Early History of
the US: from the War of Independence to the Outbreak of the Civil War
1776: In January,
Thomas
Paine
published his pamphlet entitled Common
Sense, which argued in favor of independence; on July 4, the Continental
Congress approved the
Declaration of Independence.
From August to December, the British army occupied New York and New Jersey.
1777: In
September, the British occupied Philadelphia; in October, the British army unit
invading from Canada along the Hudson was forced to
surrender at Saratoga;
in November, the Continental Congress passed the
Articles of Confederation;
Washington’s army suffered through a very bad winter at
Valley Forge.
1778: In February, France
signed a treaty of alliance with the US; the British army moved south and
occupied Savannah, beginning a campaign in Georgia and South Carolina.
1781: The British invaded
Virginia to force Washington into a decisive battle, but they were surrounded
and forced to surrender at
Yorktown
à the end of the military conflict.
1783: The
Treaty of
Paris
was signed: Britain recognized the independence of the US and ceded all
territory south of the Great Lakes and east of the Mississippi to the US.
1784–87: Three Northwest
Ordinances were passed by the Confederation Congress, which created the
Northwest
Territory
north of the Ohio River, and described how it should be surveyed, settled and
governed.
1787: The
Constitutional
Convention
in Philadelphia drafted the new
Constitution for the US.
1788: The
Constitution was
ratified by the required nine states; the first Congressional elections were
held in November.
1789–1797: The presidency
of
George Washington,
elected unanimously both times.
1789: The first Congress
began to work in September, passing the
Judiciary Act
and the
Bill of Rights.
1791: Congress authorized the construction of a new federal capital city on the banks of the Potomac River between Virginia and Maryland, the later Washington D.C.
1793:
Eli Whitney
invented the cotton gin, a machine with which cotton seeds could be cleaned
much quicker than manually
à cotton became the most popular crop in the
South.
1797–1801: Presidency of
John
Adams
(Federalist).
1801–1809: Presidency of
Thomas
Jefferson
(Republican, re-elected in 1804), the first of the „Virginia Dynasty”.
1801–1835:
John Marshall
served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: he decisively shaped the role and
the authority of the Court (see
Judicial Review and John Marshall).
1803: The
Louisiana
Purchase:
Napoleon sold Louisiana (then the entire area between the Mississippi valley
and the Rocky Mountains) to the US for 80 million francs ($15 million).
1804–06: The
expedition
of (Meriwether) Lewis and (George Rogers) Clark, who travelled from St. Louis
across the Rockies, along the Missouri and the Columbia Rivers to the Pacific
coast and back, exploring unknown territories.
1808: Congress banned the
importation of black slaves from abroad
à
the relative decline of the proportion of black population in the US.
1809–1817: Presidency of
James
Madison
(Republican, re-elected 1812), Jefferson’s former Secretary of State.
1812–1814:
War between the US and Britain:
Americans wanted to take revenge on Britain for
impressment, for the
restrictions on American trade and for British support of Indians. Neither side
won a decisive victory.
1817–1825: Presidency of
James
Monroe
(Republican, re-elected 1820), another Virginian, Madison's former Secretary of
State; by the end of his first term, the Federalist Party had disintegrated and
he was reelected without opposition
à so-called
"era of good feelings", the end of the first party system.
1819: Spain ceded
Florida
to the US.
1820: The
Missouri
Compromise, the first conflict between the Northern and the Southern states
over the issue of slavery. Missouri was admitted as a slave state and Maine as
a free state, and slavery was forbidden in the rest of the Louisiana territory
north of 36° 30', the southern boundary of Missouri.
1824: Several candidates
of the Republican Party compete for the Presidency: Andrew Jackson received the
most electoral votes, but did not achieve a majority, and
the House of
Representatives elected John Quincy Adams President.
1825–1829: Presidency of John Quincy Adams.
1828:
Andrew
Jackson
defeated Adams at the election
à beginning of the second party system.
1829–1837: Presidency of
Andrew
Jackson
(Democrat, re-elected 1832).
1830: The
Indian
Removal Act,
which authorized the removal of tens of thousands of Native Americans living
east of the Mississippi in the South (Cherokees, Creeks, Seminoles, Chikasaws
and Choctaws) to the Indian Territory (present
Oklahoma) west of the
river.
1833: Foundation of the
American Antislavery Society by
William Lloyd Garrison,
editor of the Boston weekly Liberator
à
rise of the abolitionist movement.
1836: American settlers
led by
Sam Houston
declared Texas
independent
of Mexico, and they defeated the Mexican dictator, Antonio de Santa Ana, in the
Battle of San Jacinto;
Texas, now an independent republic, applied for annexation to the US but President
Jackson refused it since Northerners opposed the admission of a large new slave
state into the Union.
1837: Samuel
F.B. Morse
invented the telegraph, which revolutionized long-distance communication.
1842: Treaty between the
US and England, which set the US-Canadian border as far as the Rockies at the
49th parallel.
1845–1849: Presidency of James K. Polk (Democrat), who was an ardent supporter of the territorial expansion of the US à the idea of „manifest destiny”.
1845:
Texas was annexed to
the Union, provoking border disputes with Mexico.
1846–48: The
Mexican
War
broke out over the disputed southern borderline of Texas. The Americans have
conquered the Southwest from California to New Mexico. In the peace treaty,
Mexico gave up these territories and agreed to the Rio Grande as the southern
border of Texas.
1846: The
Oregon Treaty
between the US and Britain set the northern boundary of Oregon territory (the
present Pacific Northwest) at the 49th parallel.
1849: The
California Gold
Rush
after gold was found in the Sacramento valley near San Francisco.
1850: National political
crisis over the admission of California into the Union. Under
the Compromise
of 1850
California was admitted as a free state, but the rest of the newly gained territories
were allowed to decide over the issue of slavery on their own („popular
sovereignty” idea).
1852:
Harriet Beecher-Stowe's
Uncle Tom's Cabin
was published in book form and became the greatest bestseller of the 19th
century, selling more than 300,000 copies within a
year. It was the most effective abolitionist propaganda, mobilizing public
opinion in the North and raising widespread anger in the South.
1854: The
Kansas-Nebraska
Act:
it created two new territories, Kansas and Nebraska, out of the formerly
unorganized territory north of the dividing line of the Missouri Compromise. The act declared that slavery in Kansas territory would be decided
by popular sovereignty (the decision of the future state legislature),
explicitly repealing the Missouri Compromise
à Enraged
free-soilers,
Northern Whigs and some Democrats founded the
Republican Party,
the first sectional party which drew its support only from the North.
1855–1858: "Bleeding
Kansas":
armed conflict in Kansas terrritory between supporters and opponents of
slavery, both of which tried to have a majority in the future state.
1857: Supreme Court’s
decision in the
Dred Scott case:
former slaves can never become US citizens and have no civil rights under the
Constitution; Congress has no power to ban slavery in
any federal territory
à created widespread outrage in the North.
1859:
John Brown,
an abolitionist zealot, attempted to start a slave insurrection in Virginia by
occupying a US arsenal in Harpers Ferry with 18
people: he was besieged, caught, sentenced to death for treason and executed
à seen as a hero and a martyr by Northerners.
1860: Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln won the election over the opposition of the South à South Carolina decided to secede from the Union, followed by other Southern states
3. History of the US from
the Civil War to World War I
February 1861: Before Lincoln’s
inauguration, seven Southern states (South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas) withdrew from the Union and created the
Confederate States of America, usually called the
Confederacy.
April 1861: Fort Sumter, a Union fort on an island in the harbor of Charleston, SC,
surrendered to the Confederate army after a long blockade and bombardment
à
beginning of the
Civil War.
April
1862: Union
Admiral Farragut
captured New Orleans, the largest Southern
port; Union General
Ulysses Grant won a bloody victory at the
Battle of
Shiloh,
TN.
September 1862:
Confederate General
Robert Lee
defended Richmond and then attacked Washington
à stopped
in the brutal
Battle of Antietam,
MD.
Jan 1863: Lincoln issued
the
Emancipation Proclamation:
freeing all slaves in the rebellious states (but not in slave states that remained
within the Union).
July
1863:
Grant occupied the Southern
fort of Vicksburg
à the whole of the Mississippi valley came under
Northern control, isolating Texas and Arkansas from the rest of the
Confederacy; General Lee’s last
attempt to invade of the North was defeated
in the
Battle of Gettysburg,
PA.
1864: Union General
William Sherman’s
march across the South to break resistance
à
he occupied Atlanta in
September, and Savannah in
December.
April 1865: General Lee
surrendered to Grant at Appomatox Courthouse, VA
à the
end of the Civil War. President
Lincoln was assassinated
in a theater in Washington five days later.
1865–1877: The period of
the
Reconstruction
in the South.
1865: The
13th
Amendment
was ratified, abolishing slavery all over the US. Congress also created the
Freedmen’s
Bureau
to assist former slaves. In response, many Southern states began to pass
Black
Codes,
intended to restrict the freedom of former slaves.
1866: Congress passed the
14th
Amendment
(ratified in 1868), which guaranteed former slaves’ right to US citizenship,
and banned former Confederacy leaders from political positions in the US.
1867:
Military Reconstruction Act: Southern state governments were abolished, states
placed under military control, they were forced to give voting rights to all
freedmen and to ratify the 14th Amendment.
1867:
Alaska was
purchased by the US from Russia.
1868: President
Andrew Johnson
was impeached by Congress after publicly opposing the 14th Amendment and
vetoing Reconstruction bills. He was ultimately acquitted because there was no
two-thirds majority in the Senate to convict him, but he soon left office.
1869: The first
transcontinental railroad line (almost 3,000 km long)
was completed between Omaha, Nebraska, and San Francisco, California
à
settlement of the West is accelerated.
1869–1877: Presidency of
Ulysses
Grant
(Republican), the former Union general.
1870: The
15th
Amendment
is ratified, stating the right to vote can not be abridged on account of race.
1872:
Yellowstone
National Park,
the first national park in the US and the world, was established by Congress.
1876: The federal
government ordered all Native American tribes to move into reservations, or
designated areas under federal supervision. The tribes which resisted the order
were forced by military troops to move into their reservations. An army of
Native American (Sioux and Cheyenne) warriors led by Chief
Sitting Bull
defeated and killed more than 200 cavalry soldiers led by Lt. Colonel
George
A. Custer
at
Little Big Horn
River,
Montana.
1876: Inventor
Alexander
Graham Bell
patented the telephone, which revolutioned telecommunication.
1877: The new President,
Rutherford
Hayes,
withdrew federal troops from the South, restoring the sovereignty of Southern states
à
the end of Reconstruction.
1880: Inventor
Thomas A. Edison
has patented the incandescent light bulb
à
beginning of the „age of electricity”
1886: The
Haymarket
Riot
in Chicago: during a demonstration of striking workers, an anarchist threw a
bomb at the policemen, who fired into the crowd, killing several people
à
gave rise to commemorative May Day (May 1) celebrations in the
international Socialist movement.
1890: The
Massacre at
Wounded Knee,
SD: about 150 Sioux, including many women and children, were killed by US
cavalry when they left their appointed reservation. The massacre became a
symbol of white cruelty against Native Americans.
1890: Congress passed the
Sherman
Antitrust Act,
the first federal government law intended to prevent industrial monopolies.
1896: The U.S. Supreme
Court decided in the case
Plessy
v. Ferguson
that racial segregation in itself is not unconstitutional
à
the notorious „separate but equal”
principle
1898: The
Spanish-American
War
broke out when the US offered support to the Cuban uprising against Spanish
rule. Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines came under US control (Cuba
formally became independent).
1898:
Hawaii was
annexed by the US after American planters overthrew the local queen.
1901–1909: Presidency of
Theodore
Roosevelt
(Republican), generally considered the first Progressive president.
1903: Panama, encouraged
by the US, declared its independence from Colombia, and signed a treaty giving
rights to the US to build and control the
Panama Canal (completed 1914).
1906: Congress passed the
Pure Food and Drug Act,
which introduced federal inspection of food and medicine products in an effort
to protect customers.
1908: Henry Ford’s company
began to produce
Model T,
the first mass-produced car
à beginning of „age of the automobile”
1909: The
foundation of the
National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the first
national African-American civil-rights.
1913: The
16th and the
17th Amendments were ratified: the former introduced federal income tax, the
latter required the popular election of all Senators.
4. History of the US from
World War I to World War II
1913–1921:
Presidency of
Woodrow
Wilson
(Democrat), a Progressive President led the US during World War I.
May 1915: British ship
Lusitania was torpedoed
off the Irish coast: 1200 people died, including 128 American passengers
à
American public opinion turned anti-German in the
conflict.
1917: Germany
declared unrestricted submarine warfare against any ship near Britain and made a
secret offer to Mexico to ally with Germany against the US (the
Zimmermann Telegram)
April 1917–November 1918:
The US took part in
World War I
on the Entente side.
January 1918: President
Wilson issued his
Fourteen Points,
a plan to establish a fair and lasting peace in Europe after the war.
1919: Wilson participated
at the
Paris Peace Conference,
where most of his ideas were overruled by his British and French partners, but
the
League of Nations
was created at his proposal. The US Senate, influenced by
isolationists,
rejected the ratification of the Treaty, so the US never joined the League.
1919–1933: The
Prohibition
Era:
in 1919, the
18th Amendment was ratified, which forbade the sale and manufacture
of all kinds of alcoholic drinks; the Amendment was repealed in 1933.
1920: The
19th
Amendment was ratified, giving women the right to vote.
1924:
National Origins
Act of 1924
established annual immigration quotas
for each nationality, strongly restricting
Southern and Eastern European immigration
à
end of mass immigration into the US from Europe.
1929–1933: Presidency of
Herbert
Hoover
(Republican).
October 24 and 29, 1929:
„Black Thursday” and „Black Tuesday”; the collapse of share prices at the New
York Stock Exchange, popularly known as the
Wall Street Crash.
1929–1933: The
Great
Depression,
the greatest economic collapse and social crisis in the history of the US.
1933:
Franklin D.
Roosevelt (Democrat)
was inaugurated President, and he started the
New Deal,
a massive program of relief and reform program
1935: The
Social Security
Act
was passed, creating the first federal insurance system offering old-age
pension, disability payment and unemployment benefit too all citizens.
November 1939: Congress
broke its isolationist position and authorized arms sales on a cash-and-carry
basis to war combatants in an effort to help Britain and France.
March 1941: The
Lend-Lease Act
was passed to give the British military equipment and supplies on credit; in
November, it was extended to the Soviet Union.
August 1941: The
Atlantic
Charter
issued by the leaders of Britain and the US (Churchill and
Roosevelt) about the
peace purposes of the future Allied powers after the war.
December 7, 1941: The
surprise Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor;
the US entered
World War II.
May 1942: The
Battle of the
Coral Sea,
a naval and air battle in which the US averted Japanese threat against
Australia.
June 1942:
The Battle of
Midway,
a decisive naval and air battle in which the US stopped Japanese advance in the
Pacific, and seriously reduced the power of the Japanese Navy.
July 1943: The invasion of
Italy began by Allied (British and US) forces.
November 1943: The
Tehran
Conference
of the three Allied leaders (Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill), in which they
agreed to open a western front against Germany.
June 6, 1944:
D-Day in
Normandy,
the western front against Germany was opened in Northern France.
October 1944: The US
reoccupied the Philippines from Japan.
December 1944–January 1945:
The
Battle of the Bulge,
the last major German counterattack in the war, which took place in the
Ardennes region of Belgium, and almost broke through the Allied frontline.
February 1945: The
Yalta
Conference
of the three Allied leaders, where they made crucial decisions about the future
of Europe.
March 1945: The death of
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the longest-serving President in American history; he
was replaced by
Harry Truman.
May 5, 1945: The surrender
of Germany
à
the end of WWII in Europe.
June 1945: The
founding
charter of the United Nations was signed at the San Francisco conference.
July 1945: The
Potsdam
Conference
of the Allied leaders (Truman, Churchill and Attlee, and Stalin), where the
first post-war conflicts of interest surfaced.
August 6 and 9, 1945: Two
atomic bombs were dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing enormous
destruction and killing over 100,000 people.
September 2, 1945: Japan
surrendered to the US
à the end of
World War II.
5. History of the US since
World War II
1945 – 1953: Presidency of
Harry Truman
(Democrat), who came to power as Vice-President after
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s
death (re-elected 1948).
1947: The National
Security Act created the National Security Council (NSC
) and the
Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA
); President Truman proclaimed the
Truman Doctrine and the doctrine of
containment.
1947–1951: The
Marshall
Plan, a program of financial aid for European recovery, which
distributed more than $12 billion in aid.
1949: The creation of the
North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO
), a defense alliance of Western
Europe and the US against the Soviet threat.
1950–1953: The
Korean
War, the first international military conflict during the
Cold War,
which made the division of the Korean Peninsula permanent.
1950–1954: The McCarthy
Era: Senator
Joseph McCarthy accused various government officials and
well-known public figures of being Communist spies or sympathizers, but most of
his accusations proved false.
1952: The US developed the
hydrogen bomb (H-bomb)
à the nuclear arms race began against the
Soviet Union.
1953–1961: Presidency of
Dwight D. Eisenhower
(Republican), the former Supreme Commander of Allied Fores in Europe.
1954: The Supreme Court decided the Brown vs. Board of Education in Topeka case à racial segregation in public schools was declared unconstitutional, the major step to dismantle racial discrimination against blacks.
1955: The
Montgomery
bus boycott begins, sparking the modern
civil rights movement. The boycott
started when
Rosa Parks, a civil rights activist, refused to give up her
seat on the bus to a white man. The bus boycott continued for more than a year, and ended with the desegregation of the local bus
system.
1956: The Highway Act was passed by Congress, establishing the federal Interstate Highway system (eventually 41,000 miles of highway have been built).
1957: President Eisenhower sent federal troops to protect black students in Little Rock, Arkansas, after they were threatened by whites and the governor refused to protect them.
1958: The
National Air
and Space Administration (NASA
) was established to coordinate the US space
program.
1961–63: Presidency of John F. Kennedy (Democrat), the youngest elected and the only Catholic president in US history.
1962:
The Cuban missile
crisis: the hottest moment of the Cold War, when the US and the Soviet
Union were on the brink of a nuclear conflict.
August 1963:
The
March on Washington,
the largest civil rights demonstration in American history, where civil rights
leader
Martin Luther King
made his famous „I have a dream”
speech.
November 22, 1963:
President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas; he was replaced by Vice President
Lyndon B. Johnson.
1963–1969: Presidency of
Lyndon
B. Johnson
(Democrat).
1964: The
Civil Rights
Act was passed by Congress, which made discrimination
on the basis of race, religion, gender, illegal in the US.
1964: The
Tonkin Gulf
incident: US warships were reportedly attacked by North Vietnamese forces
à
Congress passed the
Tonkin Gulf Resolution, authorizing President
Johnson to retaliate against North Vietnam.
1965–1975: The
Vietnam
War,
the longest military conflict in the history of the US and the first that ended
in American defeat.
1965: President Johnson’s
Great
Society program: established
Medicare
and offered federal aid for general education.
1968: The murder of civil
rights leader
Martin Luther King
and Democratic Presidential nominee
Robert Kennedy, the younger
brother of JFK.
1969:
Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon with the
Apollo-11 mission.
1969–1974: Presidency of
Richard
Nixon
(Republican).
1973: Secretary of State
Henry
Kissinger signed a ceasefire with North Vietnam, American troops left
Vietnam.
1973: The outbreak of the
Watergate
scandal, in which the government used illegal methods to spy on the
Democratic Party and then cover up its operations.
1974: President
Richard
Nixon
resigned due to the Watergate scandal, the first president in US history to do
so; he was replaced by Vice-President Gerald Ford.
1974–1977: Presidency of
Gerald
Ford
(Republican).
1977–1981: Presidency of
Jimmy
Carter
(Democrat).
1979–80: The
hostage crisis in Tehran, where
militant Muslim revolutionaries occupied the American embassy and held Americans
hostage for 444 days (about 14 months).
1981–1989: Presidency of
Ronald
Reagan
(Republican), the oldest elected President in US history.
1989–1993: Presidency of
George Bush (Republican), the former Vice-President of Reagan.
1991: The
collapse of the
Soviet Union, the end of the
Cold War.
1991: The
Gulf War; the first clash between the US and
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, in
which the US-led international coalition liberated Kuwait and defeated Iraq.
1993–2001: Presidency of
Bill
Clinton
(Democrat).
2001–2009: Presidency of
George
W. Bush
(Republican), the son of former President George Bush Sr.
Sept 11, 2001:
Terror
attacks against the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in
Washington, organized by
Osama bin Laden and the
Al-Queda Muslim
terrorist organization
à President Bush declares „war on terror”.
2003: The
US invaded
Iraq on suspicion that Saddam Hussein is secretly developing weapons of
mass destruction and aids terrorism, but these allegations have never been
proved. Hussein’s regime collapsed but US troops have been forced to stay in
order to prevent chaos and the total breakdown of government.